Inside Sam Dekker's nervewracking journey at the NBA draft

NEW YORK – Twenty-seven hours before he became a first-round draft pick in the NBA, Sam Dekker was considering a career in retail.

As his last official public duty before Thursday’s draft, Dekker was a cashier at the NBA’s flagship store in midtown Manhattan. Along with a NBA store employee, he helped check out customers who came in to buy the jerseys of Stephen Curry, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James.

He struggled taking the security tags off of items, but quickly proved capable of folding clothes and got the standard greeting down quickly, which included asking people where they were from.

“I’m not bad, I could be better,” he said, gesturing to the NBA store employee next to him. “She’s helping me out … I’m a people person, but I don’t know if I’m good enough at this. I’m learning a lot of zip codes.”

Many who recognized the former Wisconsin forward bought small $3 basketballs for him to sign. A customer who said he coached “the best team in Italy” recognized only his 6-foot-9 height and offered him a job playing basketball overseas.

“Maybe,” Dekker said, smiling. “I’ll have to check it out.”

AP Photo/Kathy Willens

Encouraged, the man kept talking up his team. Finally, he realized that he might not actually have a future star coming on the plane with him though.

“Are you going to the NBA draft?” he said.

When Dekker said that he was, the coach walked away disappointed.

At the store, Dekker appeared relaxed – he joked with fans who knew him, and gamely wrinkled his nose at a customer who shouted ‘Go Blue.’ It was the most fun, he said, he had all day.

“It’s low-key, you don’t have a script, you can just be yourself,” he said. “Just having fun, joking around with people all day, I was definitely having fun with that.”

Dekker declared for the draft after his junior year at Wisconsin where he led his team, along with fellow NBA draftee Frank Kaminsky, to the NCAA tournament finals last season. He was always likely a lottery pick in the league, but a good performance on the national stage sent his stock rising. Though it was considered a done deal that he would go in the first round, he and his agents truly had no idea where he was going and with that comes no guarantee that he would be picked at all.

(USA TODAY Sports)

“I’m ready, I wanted to go when I was ready,” he said. “And this is the best opportunity for me to be a good pick and I can impact a team right away … and no looking back, and I’m happy with my decision.”

He fielded questions calmly about his draft position at the store and at NBA media events throughout the day. “I really have no idea,” he would tell people, obviously trying to cut the conversation off.

“We try to kind of ignore it during the day,” he said. “That’s the hard part about this whole thing. You’ve got to try to blanket everything, put it away, and not think about it. But you go home, you go to bed at night then your mind is racing and you’re trying to think ‘what could happen?’”

Despite the relaxed last public appearance, inside Dekker was a bundle of nerves. With 25 hours to go before the draft, he sat in his hotel doing a social media appearance for ESPN. His sister found him on her way back from an important shopping trip: She had beer, not for partying, but because really at this point everyone needed one. Then they went to a rooftop bar near the Empire State building.

“We were just trying to have fun, get our minds off things,” he said.

He couldn’t go to sleep until 4 a.m.

(USA TODAY Sports)

Through the draft process, Dekker didn’t buy any new clothes or toys with the anticipation that he would be a millionaire. His first expense, he said when he’s a millionaire, will be to stop having his mom pay his phone bill.

“I haven’t bought anything crazy yet, I’m being good with my money. But we’ll see what happens. I told my mom the first thing I’m going to do is get off her cell phone plan. I always drive up the data and I’m going to get a new phone and it’s going to be cool.”

On Thursday morning with little sleep, Dekker woke up and went to go meet with NBA commissioner Adam Silver along with the rest of the top prospects. He got dressed in a blue suit and put his hair into its signature sweep-back look before boarding a bus to the Barclays Center.

“I’m just going to sit by myself and try to nap maybe,” he predicted on Wednesday.

When he showed up at the draft, he still had little idea of where he would go. He watched his college teammate and good friend Frank Kaminsky get picked ninth overall by the Charlotte Hornets. By midway through the first round, he began to wonder when he would hear his name. Multiple times, his agent turned to him to say “this might be us,” only to hear someone else go up. “I thought, I wonder where I’m going. I was kind of confused, there were a lot of question marks.”

Finally, his brother turned to him and told him the Rockets were going to pick him. His agent echoed what he had said a few times that night. “This could be us.” And then, Dekker saw Silver walk out and look in his direction.

“He said ‘sorry you had to wait so long, but you’re on a good fit,’” Dekker said the commissioner told him onstage. “And I agree. The wait was definitely worth it. Eighteen is still a good pick and look at where I am, a great spot, great city, good team. It’s going to be fun. I can’t wait to get out to Houston.”

With his anxiety finally over, Dekker was heading out of his third of four post-draft pick media obligations when he ran into Kaminsky in the hallway. They embraced and looked at each other, ecstatic.

Nina Mandell/USA TODAY Sports

“We did it!” Dekker shouted.

“Catch up with you later,” Kaminsky replied. “When there’s not so many cameras around and I can say what I really feel.”

NEW YORK – Twenty-seven hours before he became a first-round draft pick in the NBA, Sam Dekker was considering a career in retail. As his (…)

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